An 11-14 showing in August has slammed the door shut on the Rangers’ playoff chances. The defending World Series winners will spend the season’s final month evaluating their plans for 2025. To that end, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that Texas intends to give former #2 overall pick Jack Leiter regular rotation run for the rest of the year.
Leiter made his first three big league starts between April and the middle of May. The Rangers optioned him to Triple-A Round Rock on May 15 and had kept him in the minors until this week. Texas brought Leiter up as the 27th man for the second game of Wednesday’s doubleheader against the White Sox. He tossed four innings, allowing three runs on six hits with two walks and four strikeouts.
In a procedural move, Texas reassigned Leiter back to Round Rock after the game. Pitchers normally need to wait 15 days after being optioned before they can be recalled to the big leagues. That does not apply to players who were temporarily added to the roster for a doubleheader. The Rangers can recall Leiter at any time and Grant reports that they’ll keep him in the big league rotation. His next turn won’t come until early next week, at which point teams will be allowed to carry a 14th pitcher on the active roster with the September expansion.
Leiter’s professional career has not played out as smoothly as the Rangers envisioned when they drafted him in 2021. The Vanderbilt product has struggled to throw strikes consistently. He walked upwards of 13% of opponents at Double-A in each of his first two full seasons. Leiter has scaled back the free passes to some extent this year, issuing walks at a 10.6% clip with Round Rock.
While he’s unlikely to ever have pinpoint command, Leiter still has intriguing stuff. He has punched out a third of opposing hitters over 17 Triple-A starts this year. He owns a 3.51 earned run average across 77 innings with Round Rock, an impressive mark in the Pacific Coast League. The 6’1″ righty hasn’t gotten beyond four innings in any of his first four big league starts. He has allowed 22 runs (19 earned) over 13 1/3 MLB innings.
Leiter clearly isn’t a finished product. It’s nevertheless sensible for the Rangers to give him a few chances to try to find his form against big league hitters. He has logged 254 2/3 minor league frames, all of them at Double-A or above. He’s 24 years old and already occupies a 40-man roster spot. Texas is wrapping up a lost season and will go into the offseason with a lot questions about the rotation.
Max Scherzer and Andrew Heaney will be free agents. It’s likely that Nathan Eovaldi is also headed to the market. Eovaldi needs to pitch 23 more innings to unlock a $20MM player option. Even if he hits the vesting threshold, he could decline the option in search of another multi-year free agent deal.
That’d leave Texas with a rotation core of Jacob deGrom, Tyler Mahle and Jon Gray. deGrom and Mahle could be on innings limits after returning from 2023 Tommy John procedures. Gray has been on the injured list twice this year due to groin strains. He has a 4.32 ERA over 98 innings. Dane Dunning has an ERA north of 5.00 and has been in and out of the rotation. Cody Bradford has been limited to nine appearances this year by a rib fracture. Scherzer, Mahle and deGrom are all currently on the injured list.
GM Chris Young and his staff will undoubtedly add to the group over the winter (likely with at least two outside pickups). They’ll need some kind of emergence from their younger starting pitchers to supplement that expensive veteran group. That has not been a strength for the organization.
Former notable prospects Cole Winn and Owen White remain on the 40-man roster. Neither has become a key contributor. Winn posted an ERA above 7.00 in Triple-A last season and has moved fully to relief. As Grant observes, the Rangers also converted the 25-year-old White to the bullpen in Triple-A this month. White has had better results since moving to relief but still carries a 5.51 ERA over 94 2/3 total frames.
It’s not out of the question that Leiter’s command could eventually push him to the ’pen as well. That’s not currently on the table, though, and the Rangers will give him his first real opportunity against MLB opposition next month. That probably won’t be enough runway to guarantee a spot in the Opening Day starting five, but a strong showing could give him a chance to battle for a rotation job in Spring Training.
Leiter’s college teammate Kumar Rocker has returned from Tommy John surgery and has begun mowing down upper minors hitters. The #3 overall pick of the 2022 draft fired 19 2/3 innings of one-run ball in five Double-A appearances. He tossed five scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts in his Triple-A debut last night. Rocker presumably won’t be in line for a big league call this year, as doing so would require carrying him on the 40-man roster all offseason. He could put himself on the radar for a promotion early in the ’25 campaign if he keeps on anything close to his current trajectory.
He’s a reliever at best.
Edit:but guess Texas has last laugh as the Mets used the rocker comp pick on Kevin Parada. Which is a big oof.
He’ll be pitching in the KBO by 2026.
He’s earned a shot. Has command issues but the stuff is legit. This is the kind of guy that should get better as time passes.
I could see him as a closer, that stuff can strike out anyone
Not all starting pitchers out of college are meant to start, heck Mariano Rivera used to be a starter
Yes, but Rivera struck out very little batters. Rivera’s cutter was MEANT to hit bats to get poor contact or broken bats.
teams always fall for sec players during draft and they never pan out. Not 1 sec player was in the top 50 in war last year. Took NIL and transfer portal to be legal for them to steal Paul skenes from air force for a couple months.
Also rangers are so far behind. They ruined this kid starting him in AA…..lol how dumb can you be as a front office. Sec ball is short season ball at best and they through straight to the wolves and destroyed any confidence he had in him by starting him aa.
I am really asking this question and not meaning to be snarky but how much did the Rangers pay for each Scherzer start? I guess flags fly forever but yikes, I didn’t realize until this article that his contract is up and he’s hitting the market again this Winter.
They paid less for each Scherzer start than they did for each degrom start.
Lots of wasted money on that rangers pitching staff this year.
Sonny Gray was in the top 20 in WAR last year.
That isn’t true, now admittedly I don’t know where most players went to college but I do know for a fact both Swanson and Gray went to Vandy and both were in the top 30 in 2023.
all depending on what site you use….but fair enough good job you found 2 out of 50. There probably has been close to 50 or more sec 1st rounders since they were selected. Took swanson 6 years to put up more than 2 war in a season after being 1st overall.
Yeah dumb as$ and most of the players above them never went to college, drafted out of high school or were international signees. Do you realize how stupid your argument is and the complete lack of critical thinking skills you used to come up with your statement?
“How dumb can you be?” he asked right before saying “they through [sic] straight to the wolves”
And Skenes was never staying at USAFA; if he were to have been enrolled for even a single day in year three, he wouldve been bound to two years of active duty service.
Terrific stuff. No command. Hope he can figure it out.
His pitches are amazing, and he has good velo, but he is useless until he can control his pitches. Put him in the pen until he figures it out for 2025.
I think he’ll be okay. He was figuring out the PCL at the end of his minor league stay. It was time to be promoted. Y’all will see way too many 9K/5BB games where he throws 90 pitches in four innings, but that’s part of the part of the development process.
CY has been lauded for winning the WS after hiring Bochy, which he deserves. However some of his trades and especially his draft picks have not worked out well. He also spent recklessly on a guy who we all knew was injury prone in deGrom.
See how the last three years of the degrom deal goes, could still be a positive
the mets paid most of the bill and was good in the postseason. and didn’t trade an anything for him